No Smoking - A great smoke

Five minutes into the movie and it was decided that this would not work..not work with the major majority who define this democracy...the majority who define this system...the majority who define whats right and whats blasphemy....the majority who define whats art...the majority who define whats music..the majority who define whats pure and the majority who define whats base!!!!!!!!

Seven minutes into it and it was decided we didnt care what the majority defined...neither could have the director!

"No Smoking- a dissappointing fare...No smoking- dark & un-inspiring...a disaster from director of Black Friday....an arrogant venture...an over indulgence.." cried most of the taglines from the self proclaimed critics on newspapers,on news channels, on websites, on blogs..on almost every other popular media...Popular is the key here...popularly popular as to 'kabhi alvida na kehna' or 'laaga chunari mein daag'..

"Brilliant" is how the 'I' as in the unpopular minority defines this movie as..

There were three kinds of 'popular' dissappointments here...
1) Disappointment arising out of expectation to see the movie as guide to the smokers to quit the habit.
2) Disappointment arising out of expectation to see a 'black friday' in the 'No smoking'.
3) Disappointment arising out of expectation to see another 'KANK'type show.

...and three kinds of 'unpopular' surprises for the minority:
1) A very different and first-of-its-kind bollywood movie - reminds me of classics like 'Clockwork Orange' and 'Requiem of Dream'..
I still laugh and feel sorry for those popular souls who went on to watch "Kill Bill"for the action part...who could never look beyond and admire the style and the creativity.

2)Who could expect such a neat work from Mr. abraham...his decision and that of the others' even to be a part of this unusual act raises their stature for sure..

3)The movie is a real creative one and uses quite a few contemporary tricks like 'symbolism'and high levels of abstraction, leaving a lot on the part of the viewers to imagine. I was lucky enough to watch this in an almost empty hall...and with an almost empty mind..

Many have criticised the director-Mr. Anurag and his work as self-indulgent, selfish and arrogant.. and the same many never understood Ayn Rand or Howard Roark....and the same many never understood any art to be solely the artists' perception- his pure selfish expression!!

The objective of this post is not to review the movie(me not qualified enough to do that)..The ojective is to make my like-minded unpopular brethren aware of the reality and not get carried away by the popular reviews...

Carry on Mr.Director coz your smoke's already addicted quite a few...

..(continued)..WReckless Reckers wRecked the Reck

…a bright red flash somewhere near the temporal…and then darkness followed by a long stagnating numbness…

The effectiveness of the subsequent slaps follow the dipping marginal UTILITY curve...

For the knowledge of all those who have never had the experience of slapping or being slapped, let me assure you that the feeling is one of the dirtiest kind, humiliating enough to make you react, to rebel, to revolt… and to cry..
None of us did the above..

The initial feeling of fear and hatred is taken over by a strange sense of relief and happiness…a sense of victory.. the victory of human endurance…

This intense feeling of victory after every session, we went on to realize was what, going to keep us living through the next two months of extreme physical torture and mental trauma. When so many of the batches could survive this ordeal and especially these b@#$$%(our technical fathers) could survive it, so could we, was what that used to run through our minds during each of these sessions.

The room which was supposedly for a single occupant was now almost wet, gruffy and sweat stinking, overcrowded with the 22 bodies, 11 of them heavily worked out.

“That’s all for today” says a voice, the same one which guided us to this secret room.
“This was your technical introduction. ‘Welcome to RECK’. Did you think that we meant it , the last time we made that statement in the official freshers party, you idiots???? Official parties are for official records.. You can never be free until you learn to abide by the rules- the rules that dictate the strength and tradition (sic) of Mahagang warriors. Such sessions will go on for 2 months, 6 months or possibly a year. Your freedom from these and from us depends on how fast you adapt to the RULES and follow them without mistakes….”

The Rules
*Each of you would treat each other like ‘bhai se badkar’.
*Each of you need to know the other’s bio data by heart.
*Each of you need to maintain and carry along with you an Identity card which would be a daily record of your technical length( the length of one’s genitals)
*You are to remain in the same clothes till further instructions at any instance- by day, by night. *You need to be wearing the shoes all the time, even while on bed.
*The eleven of you need to share the same room, the same bed.
*You need to be present in front of us within ten minutes of communication, any hour of the day or night.
*You need to learn and internalize the RECK pledge, the RECK song and the Mahagang aarti.
*None of you know or ever heard of our names.
*None of you know or ever seen our room numbers.
*The bruises on your face and other body parts including rupture of ear drums are the result of freak accidents in the bathroom and the football field.

A new rule gets added every other day and the list of rules keeps piling.

And they surely made sure that we broke the rules most of the time!!!!

WReckless Reckers wRecked the Reck..

"Ok guys...roll up your sleeves, untug your shirt and follow me in pairs each maintaining four yards between...and do Walk like KINGS!!!"
"ok sir"

Eleven of us meekly follow the instructions-shocked.

The one assuming the role of our instructor is our technical father,31 years OLD- a GMC Nagpur MBBS fourth year dropped-out(thrown out), caught getting messy with the GMC director's son-a junior there, managed to get through into RECK therafter...

Hostel no.4 is where we land up-in one of our technical granfather's room- a single bed room, now occupying eleven of us and eleven of them-our seniors..Could almost feel my heart in my mouth as i and the others wait for the inevitable, foolishly hoping not to happen...

The usual questions start but the fun part's missing today,somehow. There's seriouness and heaviness, rather an artificial rudeness in their voice..

And it seems we were making too many mistakes today or did they make us feel that??????

And mistakes we did make under pressure, ofcourse- Nagu forgot my hometown zip code, dicky forgot Jalu's brother's name, I took too much time blurting out gaurav's hobbies...These were things which we were supposed to remember by heart and be ready to blurt out at any given moment of our existence.

Any smallest error was an indication of disrespect to the Mahagang rules and the rulers-the seniors..

The moment a junior commits a mistake he's ordered to "become a reck chair"."Becoming a reck chair" means assuming the posture of an imaginary chair, squatting on the floor with hands stretched on either sides..An extremely uncomfortable position.

Affected areas include toes,calf,knee, thighs and spine(Still shudder to recall those mornings following such sessions, when visiting the lavatory used to be the most difficult and painful of our daily chores,using the water pipe as support to relieve the pain in the knees)

Five minutes...seven minutes..twelve minutes is the maximum that a normal person can withstand the pain accompanying this reck chair state..Some stand up to stretch while a few fall down unable to bear...which amount to further disrespect to the senior commands and hence higher grades of punishment - punishments resulting in high levels of concentrated impact on the most sensitive visible part of the human anatomy, the face - "one tight slap" from each of the eleven seniors...(..to be continued)

Glossary
RECK- Regional Engineering College, Kurukshetra (now NIT kurukshetra)
RECKER- student from RECK known as in the whole of Haryana & Punjab
Khokha- a mini dhaba-open till late in night
Jugad- jack,connection,eatables brought from home
Mahagang- Maharshtra quota students group in RECK
KP- Kale pilley (black pups) referred by haryanvi students to all other state students
Technical father- Second year male senior
Technical mother- Second year female senior